Feature: Tillerman Decodes “Summer of '96”
Punk Head: You’ve said the narrative is fictitious, yet universal. Did any real personal memories sneak their way into the writing?
Tillerman: The ‘love interest’ part of the track is fictitious, but of course I pulled on the emotions of subsequent relationships to be able to write the song. Everything else within the track itself is all autobiographical, from memories, times and places.What things were happening in that summer of 1996, walking to school at 17 listening to Oasis on my Panasonic Walkman, the clothes, fashion and so on. The only other fictitious elements were the inclusion of two famous characters from Brian Adam’s similarly titled track “Summer of ‘69,” Jimmy & Jodie (One quit and the other got married), I wanted to make a direct counter to that famous hit!
Punk Head: BritPop was all attitude and anthems. What elements from that era were essential for you to capture musically?
Tillerman: The song originally was written to an Oasis sounding guitar loop, and the idea to write an Oasis tribute song came to mind, and alongside the current references to ‘Some Might Say’ and ‘Slide Away’ I managed to rack up another 9 song titles. However it was beginning to sound a bit silly, so, I went back to the drawing board and just rewrote the song, ditching the original music but keeping that theme of Oasis, and what it was like for a 17-year-old like me in the Summer of 1996. My influences were all of that time, Cast, Oasis, The Verve and OCS, so the song is always going to feel like it perhaps belongs in that decade.
Punk Head: You’ve deliberately stepped away from the live scene to focus on standout songs and videos. What has that freedom opened up creatively?
Tillerman: This was a step back out of necessity and practicalities. All of the band have pretty demanding day jobs and families, so gigging weekly and practicing 2 or 3 nights a week just isn’t doable anymore or at least currently. We did all this for years when we were free and easy. That led to what I call ‘The Tillerman Project’. We are a collective formed round the core of me and my brother Tom (drummer, piano, backing vocals), joined by long-time collaborators and bandmates who can’t commit to gigging but love the creative process and we all come together at different times and on different songs. We try not to write ‘album tracks’ that are great as a collective but not strong enough on their own. In doing so we create musical ‘events’ where we strive to put out standout tracks with big hooks and melodies, alongside very professional-looking music videos, filmed by a proper production company and team. In an industry full of noise, we’re trying to make Tillerman singles stand out from the crowd.
Punk Head: Visuals seem to be a big part of Tillerman’s identity. What was the concept behind the “Summer of ’96” video, and how does it deepen the story?
Tillerman: This is our 8th professional music video, and for each one we’ve tried to do something different. This song is 75% autobiographical, so I wanted to try and capture the youth, culture, music and fashion all within the video. We filmed the band's live performance in a barn, this was a present-day scenario, where the current me is grown up, fictionally working on a farm, but having a flashback to that love lost and that golden summer of 1996. For the flashback I needed a young 17-year-old me, and to create the link we had two of the same red checked shirts to connect the dots for the viewer. As luck would have it, I have a twin sister, Amy who has a 17-year-old son, my Nephew Jonah, who was happy to take on the role. The entourage was Jonah’s two sisters, my Neices, Phoebe and Jemimah, one of their friends, Kitty, who played the ‘love interest’. They were joined by the sons (Thomas & Lucas) of my good friends Nathan and Luciana. So we had a gang! We actually filmed on Scarborough beach at the end of October and we got really lucky with the weather. We tried to capture as much natural banter and fun as we could, throwing in some well sourced props such as a 1996 NME Newspaper, Games master Mag from 96 also, a Panasonic Walkman, Head bag, the original cassette of ‘Some Might Say’, the England Euro ‘96 home shirt worn by Gazza, Kangol hat and a ‘Friends’ t-shirt. Lucas, one of the boys, actually wore an old red jumper that my sister Amy bought me for my 18th birthday which was lovely to include. The hope of all the props and nostalgia is to trigger the audience's memory of that amazing time of life, and perhaps relationships past, love’s that have been lost and so on.
Punk Head: As brothers at the core of the band, how does your creative chemistry play into the sound? Do you share nostalgia, or argue over which memories make the cut?
Tillerman: We do share some of those memories, particularly, gaming, the MegaDrive, Playstation, Tomb Raider. But there is a 7 year gap between us, so Tom’s formative years probably lie in the early noughties. Regarding our sound and visuals, Tom is a freelance graphic designer so from an image and visual perspective he has a fair bit of input, and he also engineered and produced this latest single in his studio, the first time we haven’t recorded in a commercial studio set up. So, much of the production is down to him. We work well as a team and understand each other’s strengths.
Punk Head: What era or story would you love to explore next? Is there another cultural moment calling your name?
Tillerman: I did write a song called ‘Rewind’ many years ago, and listening back now, has cringe moments but it did have ‘something’. I’d love to rework that and make it a present day Tillerman track, it was a reminiscence back to when myself and my twin sister Amy were very little and the shared experience of childhood. That could be worth releasing to a wider audience and would make for a fun video.
